Friedrich Waismann facts for kids

Friedrich Waismann (born March 21, 1896 – died November 4, 1959) was an Austrian mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. He is best known for being part of the Vienna Circle, a group of thinkers who believed in logical positivism. This idea focuses on knowledge that can be proven through logic and experience.

About His Life

Friedrich Waismann was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, which was then part of Austria-Hungary. He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna. In 1922, he started studying philosophy with Moritz Schlick, who founded the Vienna Circle.

In 1938, Waismann moved to the United Kingdom. He left Austria because Nazi Germany took control of the country, an event known as the Anschluss.

He worked at the University of Cambridge from 1937 to 1939, teaching about the philosophy of science. After that, he taught about the philosophy of mathematics at the University of Oxford from 1939 until he passed away. He died in Oxford.

Working with Wittgenstein

From 1927 to 1936, Waismann often had long talks with another famous philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. They discussed ideas about the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of language. Waismann wrote down these conversations, and they were later published in a book called Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle. Other members of the Vienna Circle also talked with Wittgenstein, but not as much as Waismann did.

At one point in 1934, Wittgenstein and Waismann thought about writing a book together. However, their plans didn't work out because they started to have different ideas about philosophy.

Later, Waismann felt that Wittgenstein had betrayed the ideas of logical positivism. He thought Wittgenstein's ideas were becoming unclear and hard to understand.

Ideas on Language and Logic

In his book Introduction to Mathematical Thinking (1936), Waismann suggested that mathematical truths are true because we agree they are, not because they are always and necessarily true. His lectures, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (1965), and a collection of his papers, How I See Philosophy (1968), were published after he died.

Open Texture and Verifiability

Waismann came up with the idea of open texture, sometimes called porosity. This idea describes how statements about things we observe can always be a little bit unclear or vague. He based this on some of Wittgenstein's ideas.

Waismann believed that even if you try to make a statement very precise, there's always a chance for some vagueness. This is because there are endless possibilities that could make the statement less clear. Waismann's idea of vagueness is a bit different from open texture. He explained that open texture is like the possibility of vagueness that can't be completely fixed, while vagueness itself can sometimes be made more precise.

The idea of open texture has been used in legal thinking by people like H. L. A. Hart. Hart suggested that vagueness is a basic part of legal language. However, some people think Waismann's idea of open texture is more about unusual situations, while Hart's view is about everyday legal rules.

See also

In Spanish: Friedrich Waismann para niños